December 2011 | Eyesore

Architectural Abortions from the USA and Around the World (And Sometimes Other Miscellany Infecting the Landscape)

Presenting the M2 building, Tokyo, architect Kengo Kuma, dating from wa-a-a-y back in 1991, a Post-Modernist (PoMo) classic (no pun intended). Indeed, the joke is on all of us, because that's what PoMo was all about. The basic theme here has not changed much in twenty years, only the methods for arriving at that theme – which is the wish to confound the public as much as possible about the meaning and typology of a building and its relationship with the larger culture, not to mention its relationship with the urban fabric generally. Another ongoing theme (or gag) in PoMo was the snide assertion by the architects that amounted to saying: "We're not going to stop being Modernists no matter how much you hate the dreary glass box buildings we provide for you to live your pointless little lives out in... so here's a little joke on all your pathetic memories of a coherently ordered world...." Street scene below: almost makes a body yearn for Atlanta!

Thanks and shout-out to Matthew Belt of Georgia Tech for sending in this humdinger